Future Poke: Riverton's Ashdown Named Gatorade POY

CHICAGO-(May 23, 2012)-Incoming
Cowgirl soccer freshman and native of Riverton, Wyo., Marcia Ashdown
has been named the Wyoming Gatorade Girls Soccer Player of
the Year, The Gatorade Company and ESPNHS announced Wednesday.

Current Cowgirls Sheree Small (2010-11) and Makenzie Meade (2009-10) were previous winners of the award.

“I am very excited
for Marcia to receive this award,” Cowgirl head coach Pete Cuadrado
said. “I am happy to have the last three Gatorade Players of the Year in
Wyoming playing here at UW.”

Ashdown the 5-foot-8
forward scored 29 goals and assisted on six others. She is a two-time
First Team All-State selection and led Riverton HS to the Wyoming state
tournament. She also owns school records for
goals in a season with 35 and for a career with 84. She not only
excelled on the soccer pitch but also in the classroom earning a 3.5
GPA.

The
Gatorade POY award recognizes not only outstanding athletic excellence,
but also high standards of academic achievement and exemplary character
demonstrated on and off the field, distinguishes Ashdown
as Wyoming’s best high school girls soccer player. Now a finalist for
the prestigious Gatorade National Girls Soccer Player of the Year award
which will be announced in May.

The
Gatorade Player of the Year program annually recognizes one winner in
the District of Columbia and each of the 50 states that sanction high
school football, girls volleyball, boys and girls cross country,
boys and girls basketball, boys and girls soccer, baseball, softball,
and boys and girls track & field, and awards one National Player of
the Year in each sport. The selection process is administered by ESPNHS
and the Gatorade high school sports leadership
team, which work with top sport-specific experts and a media advisory
board of accomplished, veteran prep sports journalists to determine the
state winners in each sport.